


There All Honor Lies

by grayglube



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Canon Divergence, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Incest, Mistaken Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:10:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7474563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayglube/pseuds/grayglube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“‘Get to the Wall and you’ll be safe,’” She says, slowly, carefully as if she’s practicing her letters and her inhale is broken apart by the rattling escape of her tears. “You died.” Jon Snow comes close and touches her hair, she bows her head like a child. He stoops low and tells her, “Your name is Ygritte.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be angst, a lot of angst, and more hurt than comfort. This diverts from canon after season 5, when Theon and Sansa jump.
> 
> Title comes from a quote "Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all honor lies" It felt appropriate.

They find burned bits of news, letters, the carryings of ravens in the hearth in the chambers Thorne had taken with betrayal. A lord commander of two days and then Jon Snow returned to be the only man elected twice, nine hundred and ninety-eighth  lord commander, and the thousandth.

 

There is the seal of a northern house melted into a pink wax puddle across a still burning log.

 

When they hang them as traitors Alliser Thorne has no final words. A bastard should be alone in the world, family dead, house gone, there was never any honor to be found in a man named Snow.

 

* * *

 

 

 

A girl rides to the gates, she is at them, and then she falls from her horse to the snow. There is an arrow in her back, and she’s crippled like a bird in spring fallen from too high a branch with feathers pointing to the sky.

 

When they bring her to him there is blood on her winter pale mouth, and another arrow in her side. She looks at him and weeps, her hair is red. He holds her and does not understand why he holds the feeling that he has lost something so close.

 

He’s only been alive for three days, he’d dead for two.

 

His men are silent.

 

The girl dies quietly, soft like something pretty, like something that will not be mourned.

 

He commands the Red Woman to do what she has done for him for the girl.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She wakes roughly, like he had, hurting, but birth was always painful, the blanket tumbles from her breasts and his men, and Davos look at their boots, away. Tormund grunts, looks and turns his head once he's taken a glance. The Red Woman nods to him and Jon only stares at the girl who was dead, the girl who has returned, who holds her wounded side, gaspless, afraid. She weeps and the room's mood changes like frigid wind cutting across their bones.

 

“Child, you’ve been blessed.”

 

Her breasts heave and he can only watch the way distress makes them move. And then her hair falls over them and she keens, there are words she cannot speak, something she tries to ask, Davos pulls his own cloak around her, leans closer than the witch and asks “My lady you rode here wounded, do you not remember?”

 

She shakes her head and her hair is like a rock thrown onto embers, a spray of heat and violence.

 

“You are at Castle Black. Do you remember anything before that?”

 

She looks up at the room, at the sworn brothers of the Night's Watch, at Tormund Giantsbane, and then to him, and he feels himself heat under her stare. Familiar and longing and he knows her. Her bright brows pinch and she looks back down at the hands holding the cloak around her. She opens her mouth to speak and then closes it again, lips pursed.

 

Davos asks, “What do you remember?”

 

“‘ _Get to the Wall and you’ll be safe,’_ ” She says, slowly, carefully as if she’s practicing her letters and her inhale is broken apart by the rattling escape of her tears. Jon tells his men to leave, clipped and low and they listen without whispering on the way. “I know you.” He says. And the woman who seems more girl ceases to weep.

 

Davos blinks, waiting, not surprised but something else, mindful, cautious.

 

Jon speaks, “You died.” The girl’s breathes like a scared rabbit, her nose twitching, she shakes and her tears roll silently, her face blotching under the stain of them. Jon Snow comes close and touches her hair, she bows her head like a child. He stoops low and tells her, “Your name is Ygritte.”

 

Tormund Giantsbane steps back, “Snow,” he says but is ignored with a raised hand.

 

* * *

 

 

 

There are none who remember a girl who loved a crow, a girl who was burned before the old gods so she wouldn't rise with blue eyes. No one but him. Not even Jon Snow.

 

There’s only a girl with red hair who died when they pulled the arrows from her, in the snow, in a man’s arms. A girl with blue eyes and a name that doesn't belong to her. She doesn’t remember.

 

Tormund drinks alone, thinking more than he thinks he's ever had to.

 

He wonders if it would matter. He wonders if Jon Snow would care. He wonders if the dead should be brought back to live again. He wonders if they deserve some of the peace they were pulled from.

 

Jon Snow deserve peace he’s decided by the time the Onion Man has come to the fire, he does not share his thoughts. He offers no answers.

 

“Ygritte does not sound like a northern lady’s name.”

 

“Aye. Perhaps she stole that dress, and that horse.”

 

The Onion Man does not look like he believes the tale until Tormund tells him of spearwives from beyond the Wall, of Jon Snow’s prettiness, of how they’d all thought about what crow might taste like.

 

Tormund tells the tale so well that Jon Snow might have truly loved the girl. He loved one once, not as well as he should have, but as much as he might have been able. Jon Snow loved honor. Perhaps he has forgotten it, perhaps death has taken it from him.

 

But Jon Snow had looked at the girl and Tormund knows what he saw in his eyes. Something he’d remembered and found again.

 

No one remembers a wilding named Ygritte, who died because of a child’s arrow, not even the child, and if the child did then Jon Snow hanged him himself so it doesn't matter anymore.

 

Tormund doesn’t think it matters much anymore.

 

The girl’s kin are dead, he can guess that and _know_ it. She’d ridden alone and remembered someone’s final words, _Get to the Wall and you’ll be safe._ The Onion Man holds a cloak in his hand, there’s a red cross holding the throat of it closed.

 

“Do you know what this is?”

 

Tormund shakes his head, drinks more.

 

“It’s the Flayed Man.”

 

And when Tormund looks there is a little man on the cross, limbs thrown out in all directions, red and ruined and bloody.

 

“It’s The Flayed Man of House Bolton. She was wearing this.” Davos holds it closer.

 

Tormund lets his eyes go lazy, like he’s drunk, he slurs after a long swallow, “Maybe she stole that too.”

 

“And a gown and lady's small clothes?”

 

For a moment Tormund thinks he might have to admit the lie he’s decided to keep for Jon Snow but the Onion Man only looks down at his hands, and with the reticence of an old man ashamed at the world, he goes on, “Lord Bolton’s son is not a kind man, if she was one of the wildings caught then she might be the only one we find.”

 

His face pulls, he adds after a moment, “She’s been wounded, more than the arrows. She's suffered, there are scars."

 

"All wildings have scars."

 

"Not like these."

 

And Tormund understands. He offers his horn to the Onion Man who takes it and drinks deep. They speak no more of a girl that neither of them know any small truth about.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The question I think I should answer is why is Tormund not telling Jon that Ygritte is really dead and the answer is this: How would someone even start to tell someone who doesn't remember that the person they love is dead? 
> 
> Tormund is not a dumb guy but he is a simple guy. Davos and Podrick are the sort of people that would know how tell someone something like that but they don't know about Ygritte. And again Tormund is a Wilding and how he views the importance/virtue of hurtful truths, at least for me, is different from all these other characters who are not Wildlings.

There is a woman taller than Tormund at the gates, there is a man by her side who looks more boy, his jaw is clenched but it only makes him look more nervous. They have rode hard and killed, Ghost can scent the blood on them.

 

Jon thinks he might too.

 

* * *

 

 

“I am looking for Sansa of house Stark, we were attacked on our ride here, she fled to safety, we came as quickly as we were able.”

 

Tormund finds himself wounded by the way Jon Snow’s face resembles nothing but a mask, a face on a tree, something waiting, something that gives no answers.

 

“There’s no Sansa of house Stark here.” Tormund says before the Onion Man can ask, “What does she look like.”

 

The woman holds the reins of her horse tighter, it trots in place, the man-boy next to her looks between then all, silent but with the look of someone who is waiting to speak.

 

“Red of hair, fair, she is injured.” The woman looks around the yard, the men watch, something in her eyes goes hard, Tormund knows it. Hackles. Anticipation of a fight.

 

He feels the heat of the witch woman before she speaks, before he even sees her red cloak, “There is a girl here, red of hair, fair, she was injured.”

 

Jon Snow looks like he might strangle the woman, his beast turns its head and its eyes, it waits too.

 

The woman only dismounts.

 

“I am in the service of Lady Sansa, I wish to see this girl. If it is not the Lady Sansa I must continue until I find her.”

 

Jon Snow nods, and everyone lets loose a breath they’d held as tightly as a clenched fist.

 

* * *

 

 

“My sister is not here.” He tells Brienne of Tarth as they climb the stairs. The woman’s eyes pinch, “With respect my lord, I do not believe that to be true. I saw a girl red of hair, walk there.” She turns and points at the tower. The boy-man that has come with her does not look, he’d been the one to notice in the first place.

 

Tormund shifts, says nothing of the girl he knows is there as he follows close behind.

 

At the top of the stair he remains with the boy-man who looks away and swallows whenever Tormund gazes at him. They watch Jon Snow and the woman who stands near a hand taller than him continue on along the walk.

 

He waits for a fight he is not sure will happen.

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you have a name, boy?”

 

“Podrick. Payne. I’m her squire.”

 

Tormund nods, he does not know what a squire is. He looks closely at the boy-man and is unsure of whether he is that woman’s man or not, he seems nervous but he fights it more than tries to hide it. Maybe a squire is like a pet, like Snow’s beast.

 

* * *

 

 

Davos walks the yard below, listening to the last of words that the Lord Commander and the strange knight leave in their wake.

 

The Lady Melisandre finds a path through the snow, she watches with a placid and plain stare from the walk across the yard.

 

Davos knows he is missing something that is close enough to smell, something like a rotten root vegetable, something her cannot find, it is choking him.

 

The Lady Melisandre gazes down at him, smiles. Perhaps it is a smirk. Perhaps it is nothing but a shadow or the falling snow.

 

* * *

 

 

“The Boltons are coming for her.” Brienne of Tarth tells him.

 

He is not worried. “No one has seen my sister since Joffery Baratheon died. Why would the Boltons think her here?”

 

The woman stops and looks down at him, “Because _you_ are here.”

 

“Aye, I am.” He continues to walk.

 

The Lady Melisandre steps back to allow them to pass, she inclines her head down and does not speak. Brienne of Tarth turns to look back, the Red Woman watches them walk and it takes a moment for Brienne to follow at his faster pace but when she does her steps are heavier, her tone too. “Because she is his wife now and they can’t hold Winterfell without her.”

 

The woman does not speak sense, “Winterfell is my brother’s.” Winterfell is Bran’s now. Robb is dead. He stops, finds what has made him do so, he does not remember where Bran is. The Lady Brienne reaches for his arm but Ghost pads close and she does not close the distance, “It was, and then they died.”

 

Her tone is softer but insistent, she is hurried and still she means to impress this on him, his brothers are dead, he’d forgotten.

 

He scowls, turns fast enough for his cloak to skirt behind him.

 

They’ve walked the watch above the yard, they’ve circled back to the stairs.

 

“My sister isn’t here.”

 

Tormund opens his eyes from where he and the boy Podrick have waited. “She means Ygritte.” Tormund says.

 

Brienne’s face only pulls like laces drawn too tight, her expression searching, hoping for an answer she will understand. Davos’ face from where it watches them on the stairs he has started to climb is much the same.

 

The Lady Melisandre has come closer, at the corner of the walk she waits.

 

Jon frowns, recovers, “Lady Brienne I cannot give you something I do not have.”

 

Tormund notices the look from before the woman dismounted. Hackles, rising, and not quieting and the Onion Man reaches the top of the stair, he settles them all with measured words.

 

“Surely, it is safer to be Ygritte the wildling than it is to be Sansa of house Stark. Lady Brienne.”

 

Podrick Payne stiffens, his head moving fast and to her credit, Davos notes, the Lady Brienne does not take her eyes off Jon Snow whose hand has come to rest closer to the pommel of his bastard sword, or the white beast that has gone still, or the wilding who waits for the word of a man they've both seen rise from the dead, a man a witch woman obeys the commands of, a man who has stood and been counted as one who will die for his duty.

 

When Davos looks there is a woman in the tower window, she is red of hair.

 

Brienne speaks tersely, “Pod.”

 

The squire does not startle only tells her what is plain to see, “She’s at the window.”

 

The Lady Melisandre has come close when none were watching. The Lady Brienne has yet to touch her sword but her hand is shut in so tight a fist that the leather of her glove protests.

 

Jon Snow is silent, his eyes are empty.

 

Melisandre speaks, “Perhaps we should let her see for herself that this woman she has seen is not the lost Lady Sansa.”

 

Davos steps to close the gap between the Lady Brienne and the Lord Commander, he prays that the beast at Jon Snow’s side does not take more of his fingers. But there is no need. Jon steps back, walks, and the beast follows.

 

“Go then. Show her.” It is as if he has stopped listening, as if he no longer wishes to speak of something he already knows the marrow of.

 

Melisandre smiles, nods. Tormund’s brows pinch.

 

Davos stands in confusion.

 

Brienne and Pod exchange careful glances, unsure of where they stand.

 

* * *

 

 

“Jon.”

 

Jon stares into the fire.

 

Tormund waits.

 

To him the crow he calls friend, brother, Snow, seems as unchanging as the Wall, as winter.

 

They sit by the fire in the chambers he once again might call his own as a commander of men. Tormund says his name again and this time there is an answer.

 

“They killed my father and then they killed everyone else. We give up our names and our houses when we come to the Wall. My watch was done. They call me Lord Commander and I have not accepted, I sit here and they let me.”

 

“Jon.”

 

“What?”

 

And Tormund has thought he could tell his friend that his woman died, that she _is_ dead. He thought he could. The words have left, they leave him silent.

 

Jon Snow waits for an answer.

 

Tormund looks away from the stare of a dead man.

 

“Nothing.”

 

* * *

 

 

He goes to the tower after she is alone again. She wears a man’s tunic and breeches, the room is warm but she is like him now, they feel the cold but they are always cold.

 

“She called me a different name.” There is no distress in her, his eyes follow the length of her simple plait, a red rope. He wants to wrap it over his knuckles and pull her up to her toes and make their mouths meet.

 

“You’re name is Ygritte.”

 

From the window he can see Brienne of Tarth walk to the quarters that have been prepared.

 

“She swore on her sword to protect me. I don’t even know who she is.”

 

He answers, “She is a knight.”

 

“A knight,” she repeats. Tasting the word. Death has made her careful with them, she speaks now as if everything has a meaning as deep and as warm as blood, “it’s strange.” She adds.

 

“What is?”

 

When he’s turned to look she’s sitting on the floor, by the fire with her legs folded beneath her, she’s made herself small and soft and it's been death that's made it so. “I remember knights, I remember arrows, I remember I was unkind to you once and then I thought once how funny it would be if we saw each other again. But I didn’t know your name and I don’t know what I was so afraid of.”

 

He does not move to sit by her, it is hard for her he knows. It is hard for him. “I was dead too, I remember most things. The things I cared for.”

 

“I don’t remember caring about anything.” Her voice is like ice.

 

The places he’s been stabbed throb, then they sting.

 

“I just remember how angry I was, I hated...,” she pauses, he waits.

 

“I hated many things.” She tells him and her eyes are a blue that makes him startle. It is not the blue of the eyes of the dead but it a shade that stabs at him as deeply as fear, as dread.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The things Sansa mentions at the end are memories of when she was pretending to be a bastard and has thought about Jon when she was in the Vale. The hate is what's left over from KL.


	3. Chapter 3

There are riders that come, less than a score but larger than what has come since Stannis was defeated. The banner they brings heralds a northern house, The Flayed Man. The sigil the Boltons have carried into battle and parlay since they were Red Kings, once in a time no one remembers.

 

All anyone remembers of those days is that a Stark was King of Winter, all winter, red and bloody or white and cold.

 

Roose Bolton is too lithe to look lethal, like a shadowcat beyond the Wall. But, there’s a foulness in him, a rot that's covered under the guise of even temperament and a coolness that shows nothing of his true nature. His bastard is smug, sly and cruel in a way that's written on his skin and the way his fingers stroke the hilt of every knife he wears, in turns, like a lover, like a child with a toy otherwise not allowed at the table hidden in their lap.

 

They sit in his chambers, there is no fire in the grate, the casement has not been closed properly, he wants to watch them shiver. Davos stands, steady and straight, hands clasped. He waits like stone waits, silent and present.

 

They want his sister, they want Sansa. He is close enough to being forever done with speaking of her, of a girl he hasn't seen in years, a girl who learned every lesson from her lady mother well. He wants to ask if they’ve checked under the snow for where she might lie, if she’s come North at all. He settles, instead, for something plainer. “Why should my sister be here? She’s been missing since King Joffrey’s Wedding.”

 

Roose Bolton does not smile, he does not frown, he only corrects him for saying ‘wedding’. “King Joffrey's murder.”

 

Jon tilts his head, an allowance, “That too.” He looks to Roose’s grinning son, “And why would she be your wife? She was married to Tyrion Lannister last I had heard.” He was missing too. He’d hated the Imp once, he’d felt betrayed by the man who had seen him to the Wall even when Ned Stark had rode off for the South. The Imp had married Sansa and Jon had wondered if he's come to Winterfell and seen her then, as a girl and planned their union, somehow. Jon can no longer recall if the Imp seemed an honorable man then on the journey to the Wall. There are many things he can not remember of his life before he swore vows before the Weirwood.

 

He has pushed such easy, instant feelings aside for the lasting sentiments that are useful. The old things do not matter.

 

He speaks to Ramsay Bolton, a bastard who has been brought up to be a lord’s son only because there was no other choice. “For her to be your wife would mean you stole her and betrayed your allies. I would think it better she stay lost should what you say be true.” He ignores Roose Bolton’s scowling mouth and the shaking clench of his bastard’s hand. Jon waves, adds, “Lost or dead.”

 

She is probably dead. His sister wasn’t born for Winters. She was born for the high harp and the bells.

 

Carefully and slowly the bastard tells him, “You have my bride bastard and I want her back.”

 

Davos clears the rattle from his throat. “Do you have proof of these claims? Milord?”

           

“She was seen riding in this direction.” Roose Bolton answers, his eyes move over Davos, then they leave him. Jon is not sure if they have found Davos worthy or wanting of something. Jon does not like the look in either case, “And?”

 

Ramsay Bolton rises, walks to the casement and leans hard on his hands, he breathes like an angry animal before he recovers, steadies his words. “She saw me come here from that tower," he points, smiles, "and she lit that candle there. I saw her when we rode in and I would like to see her now.” There are threats under each word, bloody ones that are weighty and ruinous.

 

“And how would you prove this strange woman you think you saw truly is Sansa Stark, let alone your bride.” Jon is left to ask, he’s weary already.  Roose Bolton asks a question he knows the answer to, “The Night's Watch takes no sides, does it?”

 

“Correct. The wildlings you see are all members of the Night's Watch, so yes, we take no sides beyond the living before the dead.” It tastes like a lie on his lips as he says it. “We do have women here and there is more than one red-haired woman in the North.”

 

“That’s against your vows.” Roose Bolton says.

 

“You know our vows Lord Bolton, did you come to take the black? I wonder what task I would appoint you too, perhaps steward so you would learn that the Lord Commander makes decisions for the Wall.”

 

Suddenly the placid mask of reticence and ice cracks, anger form around Roose Bolton’s eyes and mouth and even once it’s smoothed Jon has still seen it. Once is enough. They stare back at each other, silent and still and Roose Bolton does not understand how it feels to be measured and weighed and found wanting as he finds so many others, Jon knows it must chafe.

 

Ramsay Bolton speaks into the silence of the room. Sure of how right he is, “I’m taking my bride back home to Winterfell.”

 

He says Winterfell as if it is meant to wound him. It was never his to begin with.

 

“And who exactly is your bride, she simply could not be Sansa Stark because that would be treason my lords, she is thought to have had some part in murdering the last King.” Davos says. Roose Bolton does not spare him a glance.

 

Jon pretends to think for a moment, “I don’t remember you ever coming to Winterfell yourself Lord Bolton. It was always your trueborn son Domeric attending my father’s feasts. Whoever brought your baseborn son his bride must have gotten the better bargain. I think. You have been sold a gelding and been told it was a mare.”

 

Roose Bolton says nothing, Ramsay’s voice is a hiss of leashed rage, “Well, Bastard. Aren’t you so clever.”

 

“Ramsay.” Roose starts and Ramsay goes silent.

 

“And have you proof this girl, whoever she is, is your bride?” Jon asks, they do not. He knows, there was never any proof only a bluff. "Is Winterfell so empty of women that you have come to the Wall to find one. You steal a Wilding and she might kill you in your bed."

           

Roose Bolton rises knowing he will return with nothing he did not bring with him to the Wall, “Thank you for your hospitality Lord Commander.”

 

“Safe travels.”

 

Ramsay does not move from where he stands, “Proof? My hounds bit her before she made it onto horse.” He points at his calf, "Right , here."

 

“…”

 

“And, there are other marks. You wouldn’t have seen those, you are her brother after all. But,” he offers, “she is so pretty I wouldn’t have held it against you if you had seen them.”

 

“…”

 

“She has strong legs your sister. They’ll still have the shape of my hands them. It hasn't been so long since I visited her bed.”

 

“That’s enough, Ramsay.”

 

“Melisandre has helped the girl bathe. She can tell us if there are such marks.” Jon tells them. Roose's eyes gleam like ice, his smile hides about his lips, there's a lift to the edges of it.

 

Ramsay shakes his head, affronted, “Stannis’ Red Witch? No, I want to see.”

 

No one answer his request and Roose Bolton then asks, “There is a girl here then, Lord Commander?” Davos has gone pale, as if they’ve given something away, a secret, but Jon shrugs, “Aye. There is. Red of hair, fair, riding a wounded mare.”

 

“I must insist then.”

 

“Yes. You must, mustn't you? Ser Davos, bring her. Lord Bolton you may stay, your son may wait by the kennels.”

 

“You must be very proud of your balls Bastard.”

 

“Go, Ramsay.”

 

“Fath…”

 

“Must I repeat every command?”

 

Ramsay Bolton goes. Tormund is outside the door and follows him to keep him where he has been told to wait. Davos moves to task.

 

Jon waits, Roose Bolton waits, They do not speak. 

 

* * *

 

 

The girl comes willing enough. There is a red stone about her throat under the furs of the cloak. Lady Melisandre is not attending her, only the woman who stands tall as a man.

 

“You don’t have to do this.” Brienne of Tarth tells her.

 

“If it will send them away then I should, shouldn’t I?”

 

Brienne of Tarth only frowns and bends her head low, allowing the girl and Davos to leave for the Lord Commander's rooms, she says ‘milday’ and then no more.

 

The girl walks carefully, unconcerned but watchful.

 

“She is right you know, you don’t have to meet with them at all. They have no say in this.”

 

The girl doesn’t even slow her steps. It’s as if she has not heard Davos speak. 

 

* * *

 

 

Roose Bolton tells his men to prepare the horses. His bastard is untethered, “Where is she”

 

“I said prepare the horses. We are leaving.”

 

“Where is she?”

 

“We will not win in this.”

 

“I’m not leaving without my bride.”

 

Roose Bolton says nothing for a long moment and then pulls himself into the saddle, reins already gripped, he puts his heels to his horse once he’s finished saying, “Do as you will then.”

 

* * *

 

 

In the hall outside the Lord Commander’s chambers the Bastard of Dreadfort shouts.

 

“Sansa!”

 

A comely girl who is pale and red of hair answers from the end of the hall behind him.

 

“That is not my name.”

 

“We are leaving.” The bastard stands as if he expects the girl to walk to him, as if his presence is one that is owed obeisance.

                       

Jon Snow comes from beyond the corner behind the girl whose name he will remember until he has died a final time, he walks to stand between her and the man who might try to take her away from him, “You’re father has left and there is a storm coming.”

 

Davos comes upon them in a rush, his hand on his sword, ready, “Lord Commander.”

 

Ramsay Bolton looks at them all in turns, inclines his head, “She remembers what it felt like. She remembers everything. You might have assuaged my father into leaving you behind but not me. Prove it, show me. All our nights together have left you with reminders.”

 

They could cut him down but the Night’s Watch takes no sides. She moves first, closer but not close enough for any of them to touch.

 

She unfolds her cloak from around her shoulders and passes it to Ser Davos who turns away once her intentions are clear.

 

Jon Snow does not turn away and she lets her dress fall from her shoulders, around her feet. There are no scars, no brands, no marks from a mouth or sharp teeth or harsh hands. There is nothing but the red stone around her throat and the red of her hair and the bright flare of fire between her legs.

 

Ramsay Bolton scowls and curses her, foul and awful, he tells her he will see her raped by every man under his command and all his dogs. She only pulls her dress on again and takes her cloak. “You’ll die in the snow.”

 

Ramsay Bolton turns. They do not watch him go. 

 

* * *

 

 

“They thought I was someone else.” She admits, understands now that she is no one but who he has told her she is.

 

“He took you. I know that now. And he killed you. But you are here again. You will be safe.”     

 

“I _do_ remember you know.”

 

“What do you remember?”

 

“I remember what it felt like. I can still feel it in my body. No one can see it, but it all still happened," her fingers smooth over the stone that hangs over her tunic and between her breasts, "This just hides it.”

 

He does not know how to answer her, there is so much he feels that words have been pushed away. Not all of what he feels is kind or nice and like love. Much of it is hate and the want for blood on his hands and sword.

 

“They called me Sansa.” She tells him.

 

“Sansa was my sister, she left in Summer and I never saw her again, no one has seen her at all for some time.”

 

“And you think she is dead?”

 

He thinks of a woman who was his father’s wife and woman who was beautiful and like ice, a woman who hated him because she could not hate her husband for his betrayal of their bed. The woman had a daughter and the daughter was more beautiful. “Anything else but dead seems worse. They would do worse to her.”

 

She only looks at the fire. “They always do worse if they can.”

 

“They won’t touch you.” He assures and she nods, she trusts in him.

 

She rises to look out the window, there are so many Wildlings now, tribes and peoples and clans. “I don’t feel anything like the others here.”

 

“It will come, you will learn.”

 

There's sullen laughter in her voice. “Learn what?” 

 

“The bow. You were better than any at that. Or the spear. Or hiding in the snow. Or laughing. Or the rest.”

 

He thinks of her body hot against his under their sleeping furs, the slick slide of her atop him, the heat of her mouth on his member, her hands pawing at him while he slept, awakening him in the night, her mouth carving along his jaw, demanding he take her again before she'd settle to sleep.

 

The words do not seem to soothe her and he feels something like a wound tear open wider inside of him, like where the knives pressed and pushed past the spaces between his ribs.

 

“I remember songs.” She says.

 

“Mance always sang, he knew ones I’d never heard before.”

 

“I remember hating, and wanting so badly to kill someone. They’d hurt me, they’d swore to me, they’d promised they wouldn’t and they _lied_. I couldn’t kill them. I was there, close, and I could have but I didn’t. And then it happened by different hands. I saw it and did not understand what had happened.” She is far away and when she returns her eyes are not the dulled by the past, they shine like knives.

 

He thinks he understands, it itches like a scab pulling and he feels naked under the weight of her despair, her disappointment in him and the past they shared. “I swore to you and you almost did kill me and then I was killed by knives in the dark, men I thought were my brothers killed me.”

 

She sighs, hand pressing to the chill of the glass. “We never should have left.”

 

“We should have stayed in that cave.”

 

“Cave?”

 

“It was a long time ago.” He smiles, it is small and meager but winter is here and he must accept her tentative trust and small amount of faith.

 

“I remember a place, underground, and it was like the dead were there too. There was a man beside me and we spoke, but I remember I’d felt like I was home.”

                            

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The things Sansa talks about are the scene where she thinks about pushing Joffery to his death, the purple wedding, the day she left for KL and Jon for the wall, and the crypts under Winterfell with Littlefinger


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back. Real life amazing things happened which is why I have not updated my in progress stuff. And also the valarmorekinks kinkmeme on livejournal has been a wealth of inspo for smutty oneshots, which I was doing instead of this.

 

The raven comes, a falcon is pressed into the cerulean wax of its seal. It speaks of his sister.

 

_Uncle Petyr says that the Boltons stole you, I promise I will kill them all._

 

Another comes, and a more delicate bird is pressed into the seal black wax. It holds a promise and a warning.

 

_Sansa Stark, escaped from Winterfell, trueborn Wardeness and Queen of the North the Vale offers the full strength of its army in the battle to reclaim Winterfell._

 

A day later there’s a half dead thing that might be a raven carrying the visage of a dead man in the pink of its mottled seal. It holds only the unpleasant ravings of a mad man who has slaughtered his own father.

 

_You will watch as my dogs devour your wild little brother. Come and See._

 

He knows nothing of the boy who signs his letters as Sweetrobin He knows nothing of his sister as queen. He knows nothing of his brothers except that they are all already dead. The letters burn bright for much less time than he thought they would.

 

The red woman stares into the flames and if she sees a vision of things to come she does not give it voice.

 

* * *

 

 

The horn blows as a man rides towards the Wall. The man wears black and grey but the fine cut of his unfrayed cloak and the silver pin that closes the throat of it cast him in the shape of an outsider to the Wall and to the North.

 

The man in his fine cloak asks, “Are you the Lord Commander.”

 

Jon can only shake his head, “I was.”

 

“Jon Snow?”

 

“Aye.”

 

“I am Lord Baelish, Regent of the Vale, Stepfather to Lord Arryn, we have come to take your sister home to Winterfell.”

 

The man has heard the rumors, the whispers.

 

* * *

 

 

Ser Davos has listened to them speak, he’s listened to Lord Baelish talk about all he will do for Sansa Stark and he has seen the dark change in Jon Snow’s face as the man continues to speak.

 

The Onion Knight interrupts, “It would not do for a man to say Sansa Stark is here after we have already proven to Roose Bolton that she is not, am I wrong in saying that? Lord Baelish?”

 

“No, you would not be.”

 

“And if she isn’t here at Castle Black then she must be at Winterfell.” Davos does not understand what drives the devious only what they seek. Lord Baelish seeks control, if he might kill all the enemies of the North then perhaps they should let him think he has it. It is a gamble, Davos knows. But, he has survived such dangerous gambles and taken so much from the table he's sat at while casting the dice.

 

Tormund Giantsbane nods and sounds his loud agreement. “Those Bolton cunts came to kill Lord Crow because they stole what’s his.”

 

“Then we will help to restore your sister to Winterfell, the Vale sent men with the Lady Stark to see her home, when they did not return we knew something had happened, we knew she had been captured on her way to Winterfell. Then the ravens we sent to the Boltons remained unanswered, it is because she has been a prisoner all this time.” Baelish runs a finger over his beard and waits for Jon Snow to answer. They must all play such strange games to avoid crossed swords.

 

“The Night’s Watch takes no sides and I’m just a bastard.”

 

“Are these men not loyal to you?”

 

“The free folk do not kneel.”

 

Again, Davos interrupts, “My lord, please come, let’s see you and your men fed.”

 

Jon Snow nods and Tormund steps close to the Regent of the Vale.

 

“How gracious,” Lord Baelish remarks before he leaves the room with men at his back.

 

* * *

 

 

The woman who is a knight comes to speak with her again, her squire remains outside the door. She listens to the woman tell her not to trust the Lord that has come. The Lord with narrowed eyes and a finely trimmed beard, the Lord who has come with his clean nails and new cloak.

 

The woman who is a knight tells her that she is _Sansa Stark_ and no one can take her anywhere she does not wish to go. It is something she has already heard many times but this time the woman seems afraid that she will walk off with a stranger.

 

“But how do you know that, had we ever met? Before you came North?”

 

The woman stops, her face collapsing in confusion and then the sparking of insult, “No, but-”

 

“Then you don’t truly know, do you?”

 

* * *

 

 

Brienne finds Jon Snow beside an empty hearth, he speaks first, his woman has already come to tell him what Brienne of Tarth is afraid of.

 

“When was it you first met my sister? In King’s Landing?”

 

She shakes her head. “No, it was as she journeyed to Winterfell, with Lord Baelish.”

 

“With a man who you have called untrustworthy. With a man who has already told a different tale of who brought a girl they call my sister North.”

 

“My squire Podrick saw her and…”

 

“Saw her and him and told you it was my sister. A squire who was Tyrion Lannister’s squire.”

 

Brienne of Tarth scowls, lips pursed. “I had wished we might speak plainly.”

 

Jon rises and walks to where she stands, he looks up at her. “So then let me be plain. A man who was in the Lannister’s service tells you that a woman traveling with the spymaster of King’s Landing is my sister. My sister who is accused of killing Joffery Baratheon, here in the North.”

 

“I don’t believe I follow,”

 

“I think Sansa Stark, heir to Winterfell, being in North gives the Lannisters the reason they need to come North and try to quell the rebellion that started when they murdered my father, his wife, and his heir. I think the spymaster here in the North, the one who has betrayed the crown to acquire more wealth and titles will be able to slink back to King’s Landing a hero when he finishes what the Lannisters have yet to truly start. I think he ran North and on the way found a girl to call my sister’s name, kissed by fire and pretty enough, another disposable thing. Another plot to save himself from being flayed when he went to the Boltons for help.”

 

Brienne exhales and steps back, Jon Snow mirrors her and breathes deep.

 

“Even if that is true what do you intend to do?”

 

He looks towards the window, the snow blows against it, the days have become colder and darker. “I intend to remember who the true enemy is. The dead are coming. Will you help me fight them?”

 

“What are you asking of me, exactly.”

 

His eyes are grey, his glance is like a cold knife. “Nothing more than what you have already sworn. Protect my _sister_.”

 

“Your sister?”

 

“Is the girl here not the girl you were told was my sister?”

 

“She is.”

 

* * *

 

 

They sup in her sparse chambers as she is of no mood to be leered at by the red-bearded wildling. “How did you know that was Sansa Stark?

 

“My lady?” Podrick unclenches teeth from around a heel of bread.

 

Brienne asks her question again, each word set forward from her carefully and slow. “How did you know that she was Sansa Stark.”

 

“I was there in Kings Landing. I'd seen her many times.”

 

“While you were serving Tyrion Lannister.” She does not mean to sound accusatory, she does regardless.

 

“Lord Tyrion isn’t like the others. That girl is Sansa Stark. But, they’re right, aren’t they? It is safer for her if we call her something else. It's safer for everyone in the North since they say she killed the King.”

 

Brienne looks down at her bowl of thin soup and feels as if she has supped on heavy jagged stones and guilt. “Only if everyone believed it, Pod.”

 

“Her brother doesn’t believe it’s her.” He says.

 

“He doesn’t.” She answers, it is less than agreement, or more, it is simple fact. They are silent for a long time, the meal turns cool and then it turns cold. “Just because it is a lie does not mean it’s not a good thing, my lady.” Brienne tries for a smile, it is a grimace. “Pod, it is never as simple as that.”

 

He looks away from the table, pensive, “It could be. You swore to protect her, protect her when she needs to be protected. That’s simple, isn’t it?”

 

* * *

 

 

There is a battle that is won by knights who are not of the North.

 

There is a bastard son held in Winterfell for final judgement.

 

There is an army of the dead to the North and much more to think on than the battles of lords who have known only Summer and Spring.

 

* * *

 

 

They wait for the men to ride through the gate.

 

The man with the smirk comes back, “Winterfell has been won, the Lady Sansa may return to her home with all her troubles far removed.” And after a moment, “Lady Brienne is that not Lady Stark?”

 

Brienne of Tarth scowls, everyone sees it. She does not look at the man, she does not soften her rigid posture. “It is, Lord Baelish.”

 

A boy rides through the gates, more men follow. The boy jumps from his horse once it has slowed enough, he stumbles and runs to the girl of many names. “Where did you go?” The boy cries, and he might be weeping, Jon is too far from them to tell. The boy wraps arms around the girl who is kissed by fire.

 

Jon has heard whispers as well. He ignores how his hands grow heavy and tight with the urge to throttle the boy and strangle the man. 

 

“My sister is unwell, she was forced to wed at Winterfell, we do what we must to survive.”

 

Eyes turn towards him in variations of misunderstanding and disbelief.

 

“I have heard.” The man looks to the woman embracing the little lord of the Vale.

 

* * *

 

 

Jon looks out on who stands in yard.

 

By the horses Podrick Payne is perfect squire, he only observes, quiet and unobtrusive.

 

At the gatehouse Davos’ face is too earnest in the cold, cheeks chapped and red, he is a picture of puzzlement and gentle confusion.

 

At his side Tormund turns to stare, no doubt to see if he has gone mad, then when his gaze is met Tormund turns his eyes towards the ground.

 

Melisandre smiles from the stairs.

 

Lord Baelish squints and the Lords of the Vale sigh relief.

 

The woman they call by his sister’s name looks towards him.

 

They have spoken on this many a night, she knows the only way to kill what’s coming is with an army. Sansa Stark might have an army and she might be Sansa Stark, it is a simple thing to pretend.

 

He’ll have a castle, she’ll have a silk dress. Perhaps they can remember what is was to be so fully alive again.

 

* * *

 

 

“Why do they pretend?” She asks.

 

“The boy is simple and the man is smart.”

 

“Is it that easy? To pretend. I don’t know that I can do this.”

 

“You can, you will learn. It is easy. I was a bastard then I was Lord Commander, between that I was yours. You pretend until it is real, you pretend until you are who you believe yourself to be.” He remembers when he wished to be a Lord, to sit where his brothers would one day sit. A boy's dreams. He was a boy once he knows, surely. He does not truely remember such a time now.

 

In her presence he feels as a man does.

 

“How did you die? Did I kill you?”

 

“You tried.”

 

“I was unkind to you, I know that.”

 

“I was a green boy once, do you remember? You knew me first.” He kneels and presses his face to the front on her tunic. He presses a hand to the placket of her breeches. “I kissed you here.”

 

She startles and stiffens, her voice a rasp. “So did he.”

 

He leans back from her, on his haunches he looks up at her face, the awful expression of what she remembers. The hurts of what has been done to her, things she might have been able to fight if he had not led her beyond the Wall.

 

She kneels down beside him. “He’s dead now and I still only feel half alive.”

 

Jon can only stare at her mouth, the twist of her pale lips, the secret pains she has kept from him. “You aren’t.”

 

She shivers and stares into the fire. “There was nothing, there _is_ nothing, just the dark.”

 

Jon will not lie to her, he will make no promises about it. “Yes”

 

“I feel like I’ve seen it before.” She says. Her eyes are empty. Her voice is toneless. And then she is angry, “It’s like they keep bring me back, like I’ll never be able to rest, everyone else is gone. Aren’t they?”

 

He shakes his head, “I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need an honest opinion because while I may like using everyone's title often in this because it feels right for this fic are all the Brienne of TARTH, Jon SNOW, and ONION KNIGHT jarring for anyone? I think it works but I am obviously biased. Also Podrick should have pussy whisperer as his sobriquet. Podrick the Pussy Whisperer. Someone write me that fic.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've been missing in action here a little but here's an update

The room is full, one little boy in a fine blue cloak and many men in their shades of black and grey.

 

Peter Baelish steeples his hands and cocks his head. “She does not remember?”

 

Jon Snow does not like the way the man looks so neatly put together. “She was dead.”

 

“Forgive me for saying,” he starts and Jon Snow waves his hand to stop the half-truth about to be given voice, he wants to take the man apart. A pile of pieces, steaming in the cold.

 

The wolf at the hearth shifts its bulk, resettles again with eyes open.

 

“You don’t believe it’s true.”

 

The man who has betrayed all and kept promises to none does not look away, he does not scoff but his mouth makes the shape of it.

 

Jon Snow goes on. “She died outside the gates, you came too late to save her.”

 

“We won Winterfell.” The boy-lord of the Vale asserts, banging at the table with a small fist.

 

Petyr Baelish does not look away from who he sits across of and the answer given is for him, not the boy-lord. “ _After_ it was burned and was much destroyed, _after_ my sister was stolen and raped and cut by knives and starved and died cold, in the snow. You won _nothing_ and you saved nothing.”

 

The little lordling looks affronted. More than that, he looks at him with all the rage a child might muster for someone who cares not for them or their wants.

 

“But you might,” he adds. His eyes are a steady stare of grey, grey as ashes that have lost their warmth.

 

“You have the full support of the Vale.” And the man they call Littlefinger ever this far from King’s Landing, even this far from where someone first spoke his epitaph, looks assured.

 

“I wasn’t talking to you, Lord Baelish. I was speaking to the Lord of the Vale.”

 

* * *

 

 

The man comes, hair streaked with grey and beard neat, his silver pin catches the light at the window. He has come to tell her about herself. The things she does not know. “You play the high harp, and you make the loveliest gowns with your own hands, you sing.”

 

He looks at her and in his eyes is greed, like the dark that had swallowed her. “I am very tired milord,” she tells him.

 

His face twists, like he does not know what to make of her. Like he does not know who she is at all. But he does. She is sure of that much. He knows what he made of her.

 

“You must be. Sweet Sansa. I’ve never known you to say ‘my lord’ quite like that before.”

 

His smile is foul and small like some starved animal’s leer.

 

“Best she should rest. My lord.” Brienne of Tarth tells him from where she stands inside the door.

 

He inclines his head, some shadow of a bow.

 

And, the Maid of Tarth shows him to the hall.

 

* * *

 

 

The girl is looking at her hands when she first speaks. “They say that wildling women fight alongside men.”

 

“Aye.” He nods.

 

Her fingers are calloused, she looks up from them. “Was there truly a king beyond the Wall?”

 

“We called him Mance.”

 

“He’s dead now.”

 

“Aye.”

 

She looks down at the snow between her boots, the drift of it around the heavy hem of her skirts. “I remember songs.”

 

He nods again, remembering his friend and the wound the memory of him has become. “Mance knew all the songs.”

 

He stops speaking, catches himself by the scruff, for a moment it’d felt like he’d been talking to a ghost of another girl. He looks at her.

 

The red of her hair is lucky, mayhaps not, perhaps yes.

 

Noble girlings cannot fight, he knows this, he’s seen them stolen before, when he was a younger man. When he was a worse man. He did not think he would find monsters south of the Wall when he climbed over it.

 

Noble girls can only sing and be hurt, they can only run and die and call that final place safe.

 

He begins to tell her of Mance and the start of a long tale of the man he called friend and King before a captured crow usurped such a place, not by theft but by a stubbornness to climb out of his own grave. 

 

He tells her of herself, her fierceness and her easy rage, her fingers calloused from the bow.

 

“That’s not who I am to be now.”

 

“You should still know.” He bites off with the cold.

 

She looks at him and he wonders if there is a girl in her somewhere that came back from the dead or just another ghost.

 

* * *

 

 

“What happened to your sister?” She asks from the fire.

 

Her hair shines like warm blood.

 

“She went south, with my father and my other sister. She never came back. None of them did. Then, their mother went South, and the brother I almost abandoned the Wall for. They never came back. The others stayed in Winterfell and died.”

 

It is a sad story, there is none of the fantastic in it to hide the bitterness of it.

 

“What will happen now?”

 

“Winterfell is a stronghold and the Wolf’s Wood is full of game, Wintertown can house and hold the rest of the wildlings but none of it can never be mine”

 

“Because you’re a bastard.” The word bastard tastes like something pinching her tongue. Her heart stutters, a deep ache against the rib it tosses itself against. There is fear in her.

 

She’s braced against being struck. Why should she be so afraid of a word, she reasons. He answers before she might prod the bruise of some distant whisper out of the dark.

 

“Because I’m a bastard.” He affirms.

 

“But your sister isn’t.”

 

He looks at her like a man who is truly a man looks at a woman only he might tender with, tender to. He is a good man. Kind and strong. It hurts her heart.

 

“You don’t have to.” He speaks her name and it sounds so strange in his gentle lilt. “Ygritte.”

 

“That might be the last time you can call me by name, Lord Crow.” She has heard many call him such a name and it seems to soften his resolve, his steadiness while feeding her own. He is only a man. No fortress are they.

 

“It is.”

 

She swallows against the look in his eyes, hungry. He is a wolf again, like any man might be at night, even if he has never wounded her with his teeth or his hands or his lust, others have.

 

She comes closer. “So then tonight call me by it, as many times as you are able, so I don’t forget.”

 

And, so he might keep her. Close, safe.

 

Her words sounds flat to her and her eyes are sightless, deadened by what has come before. But, he finds nothing in him that cares enough to protest her mouth pressing to his, or her hands loosening ties and stays. Her touches perfunctory but firm are a duty she has made for herself.

 

Soon, atop his furs, he is hot inside of her and she is beneath him.

 

She weeps and does not know why. He does not ask if she is sad but slows, stops, removes himself from her body and presses against her like a hot brand between her thighs as he moves to hold her.

 

His arms pull tight to keep her from shaking.

 

Her eyes are wet but she cannot find it in her to name some cause for it and her limbs are too long to curl so close, like a child and he is too much of a man to wrap them both in furs, as if they might hide from nameless things in the dark.

 

When he tucks her under his chin she feels where his heart keeps a different count than when it first started to beat. “Do not hate me.” She says.

 

His chuckle and mouth pressed to her crown soothes her disquiet. “I don’t.”

 

* * *

 

 

Brienne of Tarth seems to have forgotten that it is a person who might make speech that she is guarding from the more active attempts of men when she speaks. “It’s warm here.”

 

“Yes, my lady”

 

“You don’t have to call me that all the time.”

 

“What would you have me call you, my lady?”

 

The last Stark looks up from a tangle of nervous stitches, they are not as neat as they should be, she knows. “My name.”

 

The look they share is soft and quiet with a bitter sadness in it.

 

She rises from her seat, leaves her simple stitch in the seat of the chair.

 

“Sansa,” she supplies, as if the Maid of Tarth has forgotten.

 

* * *

 

 

The castle is large. There is no other way to see it.

 

And yet, it seems smaller to her like a true sound after having heard only the boundless echo of it, something imagined that she has come to in the flesh.

 

It is not the same as she thought it would be.

 

His words break her thoughts apart like ice cracking. “We share a solar.”

 

His cloak is torn along it’s hem, she points at it. “I can mend that for you.”

 

“You don’t have to.”

 

He’s been careful not to touch her or be so alone with her as they are now. They have become something different now. The son and daughter of a noble lord.

 

But, she does not feel so noble, remembering him in the dark.

 

It had not been some wound she’d been meant to carry, he’d not been a monster, she’d not been afraid when he had wanted her.

 

“Don’t sisters do such things for brothers?”

 

“Some do.”

 

There is a face that comes to her, unbidden, beautiful but worn, something bright and gold and red, an animal beauty. A woman as unkind as a beast. It might be another song, her mind is tired from things half-remembered. He’s told her to distance herself from it lest it upset her unduly.

 

“Then I shall.”

 

He grins then, slowly, regales her with a tale of the King Beyond the Wall’s red and black cloak, stitched with silk but she is not child, is not so easily distracted from the state of things with stories.

 

“Davos told me about the Red Witch and the things she said.”

 

Her lover-brother smirks. “That I’m a reborn hero and I’m going to stop what’s coming?”

 

“Are you?” Her stare must be sharp and her tone all teeth for how he winces.

 

“I’m just a man.”

 

“Who came back.”

 

He looks at her slowly, his eyes like hands on her body, not grasping or harsh but strong under their caution. “And you’re just a woman who came back.”

 

She breaks the stare stuck between them and ties a knot in her stitch. “There’s a song, the man’s woman dies. He kills her,” she tells him.

 

“What song?”

 

“I don’t know its name.”

 

He seems to accept that much, there is a name for the song.

 

She remembers it but it always made her sad so she'd rather not speak it.

 

“There’s a song about a man who finds a bride beyond the Wall,” he tells her.

 

“It sounds lovely,” she looks up, smiles sharply, “lovely and dumb.”

 

Her words are someone else’s, a little girl’s surety, she does not always feel like a woman, the word ‘lovely’ tastes stale in her mouth.

 

“She was an Other.”

 

* * *

 

 

It is cold and the Lord Crow’s sister has blue lips, again. “I was good at this?” She asks.

 

He plays his part, dutiful and loyal to a man he has sworn himself too, he rubs snow from his ruddy beard. “You were all right.”

 

She scowls and he rectifies his moodiness with the truth. “You could put an arrow through the eye of a squirrel from here to the gate, further in clear weather.”

 

“I need to learn again.”

 

“Noble ladies have great lords for this sort of thing.”

 

She looks out over her wrist at the cloth circle pinned to hay. This is not how the girl he knew beyond the Wall learned the bow.

 

Truthfully, he knows not how that girl had learned, only that it was not with a painted target.

 

“I knew a lord who could put a quarrel through a girl’s eye a half-league through the woods.” She tells him, something dark behind her eyes.

 

She misses the hay by a wide stroke.

 

“And he will die slow, soon. You know that, girl.”

 

She does not look away from the bale.

 

“He gave me the bow, like he was teaching me to use it. He knew.”

 

The Husband to Bears stills himself, rage will not do, it is not the girl’s fault she has been cast as another. “What?”

 

She holds out her hand for an arrow from the quiver, notches it and pulls it too her cheek. “The hounds got her. The girl, in the woods, a quarter league away. I missed. He knew. He put one through where her eye was after she was dead. Might have been her eye, dogs had eaten her face.”

 

He startles her in his haste to pull at her shoulders, shake sense back into her, shake her out of what is done and soon to be dead. It is an affront to the dead girl she might be told she is to be by a man who is too noble to forget a ghost.

 

Damn men called _Snow_ , he thinks.

 

“Girl, stop thinking of him!”

 

She pushes him back. Cheeks red in anger, eyes wet with grief and he is ashamed by it.

 

“I was sick on myself this morning.” She tells him, an awful truth, a babe in Winter. An awful lot for a woman.

 

He looks away from her.“There are ways.”

 

She only picks the bow from the snow and from the quiver takes a new arrow, notches and pulls it again to her cheek. “I won’t have it live. I won’t have him live. I want to kill them both.”

 

She misses. But, perhaps, it is not so wide from the mark as her other shots.

 

* * *

 

 

Tormund has come to him, and the Lady Brienne.

 

He goes to the maester.

 

“Has my sister bled yet?”

 

“My lord?”

 

“Her moon blood, has it come?”

 

The man looks afraid, he has an answer he is not sure will be well received. The maester is more used to the Boltons. “I do not know my lord.”

 

“You are her maester.”

 

“I was not called to examine Lady Bolt-… Lady Stark.”

 

“You have stores of moontea, do you not?”

 

“Some,” he nods, “yes, my lord.”

 

“Bring it to her.” He’s turned to leave, mended cloak sweeping the rushes.

 

The maester stops him softly with words.

 

“My lord I do not think it wise to presume Lady Stark’s wishes in such things.”

 

His eyes and the displeased crescent of his mouth the only features presented to the maester. He inclines only his head to look back at the man, there’s fear in him. “You serve house Stark now, do you not?”

 

“Yes, my lord.”

 

“Am I not the son of Lord Eddard Stark?”

 

“You are, my lord.”

 

“It must not be my bastardy that gives you pause then, but something else?”

 

“My lord?”

 

He comes to face the maester, proud and unquestionably a lord. “I am the son of Eddard Stark and I have been released from the vows that made it necessary to relinquish claims my father might have gifted to me. I am no brother of the Night’s Watch now. Does this make things clear for you? Enough so that you might do your duty to Lady Stark? You wonder why it is not her who has come but would it not be questioned why she came if one were to see?”

 

“I understand,” the man says and nods. “Of course my lord.”

 

“Then go to your task.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Where is Ramsay snow? I know he is not yet dead.”

 

“He is in the cells, my Lord.” Maester Wolkan tells him.

 

“And his men?”

 

“The same, my Lord.”

 

He looks to the Onion Knight. “All fighting men, Davos?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“They will garrison the castles along with Wall with the wildlings, they will serve under whoever Tormund might think fit, and if any refuse they may take the Black or hang. Write the Wall.”

 

“And Ramsay Snow my lord?” Maester Wolkan asks.

 

He waves without true answer. “You may leave us.”

 

When the maester has gone it is only them and Ghost.

 

Ser Davos sits down beside him at the hearth. “What would you have done?”

 

“My sister will decide.”

 

“There has been some whispering that Lord Baelish is planning a public execution.”

 

“My sister will decide.”

 

“Excuse me for saying, but do you mean that?”

 

“Yes.” He does.

 

* * *

 

 

She shows her thankfulness with lips and teeth and tongue and the fire of her sex, hands and tears and she is thankful. Her gratitude nourishes something starved in him for so much longer than he has given measure.

 

The promise of a just murder has made her wanton.

 

* * *

 

 

She is not an old hand at the bow anymore but she keeps her aim lower than his heart and his throat. She would not have such sweetness stolen from her so soon.

 

It becomes a prolonged endeavor.

 

And, perhaps it is too much cruelty so blithely put on that there are those among them who would turn from her in disgust or with a soft stomach for such harshness if it were not Winter.

 

But, it is Winter now and around the yard it is hate that threads Winterfell together again like a repaired banner.

 

A fragile tether of what one man has done to them all because he has done so to the heir of the North’s truest house frays and is broken.

 

Ramsay Bolton arches and keens and screams the way she had done in their marriage bed.

 

His corpse freezes to the death post and her moon blood comes at dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some things were a little glanced over this chapter (that angsty jonsa smut) but don't worry because momma has got all the dirtybadwrong angst to come.

**Author's Note:**

> I always put Tormund and Brienne into these sort of Kent from King Lear roles where they are loyal but also a little tragic. Also in this the Pink Letter is burned by Thorne for petty revenge against Jon, hence why nobody knows who Sansa is and coming back from the dead takes something from you, as per Beric Dondarion.


End file.
